Alexandra Lee

4/18/16
UWRT 1102
Final thesis paper

Womens Sports: Where is the Respect?

Womens sports where is the respect? Female athletes work just as hard as
male athletes and have the exact same amount of talent to be great in their sports and
be amazing athletes and competitors. Females have to wake up early for workouts like
male athletes and have to put in hard work just like male athletes and follow a diet to
keep their bodies healthy for their sport just as male athletes. Anyone who keeps up
with sports even if its a small amount, will agree with the fact that female athletes do
not get the recognition they greatly deserve. And when they do they seem to be
sexualized and get comments that are about their image or personal life. Am I the only
one who notices this? Do other females realize that there is a problem? Do males
notice? Or are both males and females completely biased to the situation?
This paper isnt about women having to get all the attention and being a feminist
but it is about equality and trying to understand why women dont get the same attention
and respect. Females deserve much more respect and recognition when it comes to
their success. Females have worked so hard to get to where they are now. Women like
Alice Paul and Lucy Burns who are American suffragists have walked and protested to
have rights. On August 18, 1920, the nineteenth amendment was passed which granted
American women the right to vote. This right is known as womens suffrage, this
amendment was passed after a seventy year battle. (History) Women have worked so
hard to get to that point why would we stop now?
This problem can be dated all the way back to the beginning of history books.
Women have been playing sports three millennia ago but not in the United States. Prior

Alexandra Lee
4/18/16
UWRT 1102
Final thesis paper

to 1870 females sports were only for play activities and recreation. Competition for
women was non-existent. Sports for women were informal and had no rules, all it did
was emphasize physical activity. (The Sport Journal) In the early years women were not
allowed to play in competitive physical activity in the United States of America until the
Federal Legislation, more known as Title IX became a law in 1972.
Womens sports was not active till basketball was introduced at Smith College in
1892 but it wasnt competitive it was strictly intramural. The sport itself spread quickly
throughout the nation but it was opposed by many at the time. The womens suffrage
movement helped this emphasis on womens freedom and later came the passage of
the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which also helped increase the status of women but
minorities as well. (The Sport Journal)
Title IX became a law in 1972, the evolution of Title IX happened when women
wanted greater equal treatment in athletics. What is Title IX? The principal objective of
Title IX is to avoid the use of federal money to support sex discrimination in education
programs and to provide individual citizens effective protection against those practices.
(US Department of Justice) The main focus of womens groups in the late 1960s and
1970s was to eliminate sexual discrimination. The rights that women wanted was paid
very little attention to, the rights the women fought for in sports only became noticed
when Title IX was passed. Most people think this was just for womens sports but Title
IX focuses on the your rights as a man or woman and they say no one can be denied
of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving
federal financial assistance. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.

Alexandra Lee
4/18/16
UWRT 1102
Final thesis paper

The NCAA became concerned with what it perceived and they begane to
address the issue of womens athletics. The NCAA is a National Collegiate Athletic
Association that is a membership-driven organization dedicated to safeguarding the
wellbeing of student-athletes and equipping them with the skills to succeed on the
playing field, in the classroom, and throughout life. (NCAA)
With Title IX, females have become much more involved in sports. The
participation in womens athletics has increased from 15% to 43% since 1972 to 2001.
In high school, the participation of girls in athletics has increased from 295,000 in 1971
to 2.8 million between 2002 and 2003. Not only did the participation increased but the
teams that were offered in schools grew a significant amount. These numbers are
ridiculously high and why should it stop there? Why dont womens athletics continue to
grow? The answer to this question is very simple. Womens athletics will not continue to
grow until the media gives it the right amount of coverage and the right coverage. The
media tends to not talk about a females success in sports but more about their looks
and what theyre wearing.

Many people may argue that women already get enough attention in the media,
not in sports exactly but in everyday gossip. In blogs and magazines, they seem to
always talk about females, but in the end does it really seem positive? If anything it
seems a tad bit negative. The blogs and critics are always commenting about their
weight, or what they do with themselves and their lives. This isnt the type of media
attention females should be receiving. Young girls look up to them and read the
magazines and blogs and this could end up hurting young girls and hurting their

Alexandra Lee
4/18/16
UWRT 1102
Final thesis paper

confidence in how they look and theyll go the extra mile to fulfill the perfect look the
media talks about. This is the exact same thing in female sports. A great example would
be the professional tennis player Serena Williams, she is one of the greatest athletes in
the world, but no one seems to talk about her talent, what seems to be talked about is
her appearance and her body image. She has become such a successful woman and
plays such a big role in the sport of tennis because of her talent. So many speak down
upon her due to her physique. She is an incredibly strong female both mentally and
physically. Many people comment on her strength by calling her a man or masculine,
people even make comment like she should play in the mens pro-circuit instead of the
womens pro-circuit. A lot of this could be found on social media like twitter; Serena
Williams is a f**kin guy lets not beat around the bush here -David Marklow and
Serena Williams is a guy -Carson Stewart. These remarks are upsetting to read and
listen to, as a tennis player I see this more than enough, I could read a random article
and somewhere in there I will find the word masculine or even when I watch her play
on television.
Female athletics do not get the amount of media attention and recognition they
deserve. Why do men get much more respect and attention even though females work
just as hard and have the exact same amount of talent? In the article Women Play
Sports but Not on TV there was a study by USC and Purdue sociologists Mike Messner
and Cheryl Cooky said that men take about 96% of sports news on television in 2009.
Womens sports continue to grow each year but unfortunately the coverage on womens
sports seems to decline.

Alexandra Lee
4/18/16
UWRT 1102
Final thesis paper

When womens sports do get coverage the quality is poor. Cheryl Cooky, an
associate professor of women's, gender, sexuality studies at Purdue University and
study co-author of the poor quality and coverage of womens sports, speaks upon this
poor coverage and says, This is a persisting trend. Its just somewhat disappointing
given the tremendous growth and participation in womens sports over the last 25 years
in particular. That excitement is not being captured by the media. Also in their study
they have observed that women athletes (and women spectators) were frequently
portrayed in demeaning ways-as sexual objects, or as the burnt commentators
sarcastic humor in stories or marginal pseudo-sports. (USC)
As a female athlete myself, Ive been realizing since a young girl that we dont
get the amount of coverage we deserve and when we do it is extremely poor quality.
Why dont we get the same coverage? When we do why does it seem to be poor
quality? Why do we get sexualized? Females work just as hard as males. We both have
talent so whats the problem?
Is the problem really the media or is it the public? The public in general seems to
say womens sports are much more boring than male sports. Could this be the reason
womens sports get very little coverage because the public speaks down upon it? The
media wouldnt cover something that no one wants to watch or listen about if they are
not interested. The media would be wasting money covering these stories, which makes
it understandable if they dont want to have any coverage on female sports. This
shouldnt be a reason for poor quality coverage. What if the media spoke high of
womens sports could the public get excited and give female athletes the recognition

Alexandra Lee
4/18/16
UWRT 1102
Final thesis paper

they deserve? If the media spoke highly of womens sports the public would get excited
because theyd cover all the exciting moments that go on in womens sports. Sports
fans can also be an active part of this loop to promote change. (USC)
Since I am a female college athlete I see this every day. For example when I go
to a mens basketball game almost every seat is taken but when I go to a womens
basketball game it is pretty much empty, which is sad because our womens basketball
team is extremely talented and had an amazing season. I even experience this, our
mens tennis team is extremely talented and they get a good audience coming to their
matches whiles womens tennis may get lucky if we get about two rows filled. It is sad
because we are just as talented and put in the exact same amount of work.
Another good example of female athletes not getting the excitement from the
crowd would be Charlottes womens basketball team. They dont get the same
coverage and attentions as our mens basketball team. The mens team gets so hyped
up and the crowd gets so into the mens games, people come in with signs and posters
and the arena is extremely filled. For the womens team most of the seats are empty the
crowd isnt as into the game as they are for the mens games. The reason is because of
the poor advertisement for womens sports. Not only in college but from high school to
college to the professionals.
In the article, Media Coverage of Womens Sports: A New Look at an Old
Problem it talks about how past research for both public and private media has
demonstrated that womens sports has a much lower coverage that mens sports.
Research of media in intercollegiate sports hasnt really been done to popular sports, so

Alexandra Lee
4/18/16
UWRT 1102
Final thesis paper

they decided to study womens and mens tennis and the coverage of womens tennis is
much longer than for mens tennis. But overall men get more coverage than women.
Women not only receive less coverage than do men, but when they do they receive
exposure, it is in a stereotypical manner (Kane & Parks). Oftentimes, women that Are
physically attractive stand a much better chance of receiving media coverage
(Cramer). They also did research on college athletics and it was the same result barely
any coverage but also they had untimely coverage while the game/match was going on.
This topic is very interesting because in the article they also stated how much of an
influence the media has on the public. Studies of media coverage in sport can be
characterized in two ways -- those studying the amount of coverage allotted to women
and those analyses of the actual content within the given coverage. For instance,
Coakley reported in 1998 that the amount of coverage women received in big city
newspapers had not changed during the last quarter century The researchers Duncan
and Sayaovong said that male athletes outnumbered female athletes in pictures and
articles in sports illustrated for kids. Even though women receive less coverage than
men the women that seem to be more physically attractive stand a much better
chance of receiving media coverage. (Cramer pg 173)
Women and girls shouldnt be known as just cheerleaders or being on the
sideline of games. Renee Steinberg the author of the article Striking Out Stereotypes:
Girls in Sports Fiction she talks about how in fiction books for children seems to be the
main topic for females would be them cheering on for a mens sports team. You would
barely find a book that talks about girls making so many sacrifices to become a

Alexandra Lee
4/18/16
UWRT 1102
Final thesis paper

successful gymnast. Girl gymnasts need to make so many sacrifices in their time and in
their social life. When will you find a book about a girls family that has to make an
unbelievable amount of financial sacrifices for their young daughters tennis career
(Striking Out Stereotypes: Girls in Sports Fiction). Many children read books, why not
teach them to appreciate women as women and as athletes? That could be the start of
growth in media attention in womens sports and respect in them. Sports have become
one of the primary hobbies for school-aged females, and team sports for girls are on the
rise. Sports literature for girls, unfortunately, has not kept up the trend. Small changes
like this in books would help the next generation appreciate women in sports and maybe
bring the excitement they need.
A sport that doesnt get the respect and the excitement it deserves is womens
basketball. When do you see womens basketball on tv? When do you hear about it?
When do you read about it? We all know the answer to this, because its pretty clear, the
answer is almost never and I emphasize the word never. Not only the difference in the
coverage womens basketball receives but also the wage gap. In the 2013-2014 season
Forbes estimated that the average NBA player earned 4.9 million dollars while the
average WNBA made 72,000 dollars. Think to yourself, is this very fair because
personally I do not think it is. These female basketball players are waking up just as
early for workouts, and for practices, from the stretches in the beginning to the stretches
in the end of workouts or practices in dripping sweat, and just as men they need to keep
a healthy diet for their sport.

Alexandra Lee
4/18/16
UWRT 1102
Final thesis paper

Female sports: Where is the respect? The respect come from us the people. We
need to make female sports exciting and to give these hardworking females the
recognition they deserve. Their personal life doesnt matter, what theyre wearing
doesnt matter for us what matters is how they got to where they are and about their
hard work on the field/court/track. We need to teach the next generation to be excited
for womens sports and to respect all their hard work. Sports teaches kids to be
outgoing, and to work hard, and teaches them many different life skills, something many
females need. The respect and excitement comes from us, women have gotten so far
from being able to play sports to being able to vote so why stop now?

Alexandra Lee
4/18/16
UWRT 1102
Final thesis paper

Citations

Steinberg, Renee. "Striking Out Stereotypes: Girls in Sports Fiction." UNC Charlotte Libraries.
School Library Journal, Jun90, Vol. 36 Issue 6, P62. Web.

Cunningham, George B. "Media Coverage of Women's Sport: A New Look at an Old Problem."
UNC Charlotte Libraries. Physical Educator Spring2003, Vol. 60 Issue 2, P43 7p. Web.

"Overview Of Title IX Of The Education Amendments Of 1972, 20 U.S.C. A 1681 Et. Seq."
Overview Of Title IX Of The Education Amendments Of 1972, 20 U.S.C. A 1681 Et. Seq. 7
Aug. 2015. Web. 02 May 2016.

Bell, Richard C. "A History of Women in Sport Prior to Title IX | The Sport Journal." The Sport
Journal. U.S. Sports Academy in Sports Management, Women and Sports, 14 Mar. 2008. Web.

"Know Your Rights on Campus: Title IX and Athletics." AAUW Empowering Women Since 1881
Know Your Rights on Campus Title IX and Athletics Comments. AAUW. Web.

"Media Exposure of the Ideal Physique on Women's Body Dissatisfaction and Mood: The
Moderating Effects of Ethnicity." Journal of Black Studies. Journal of Black Studies March 2010
40: 700-716, 23 May 2008. Web.

Paula-Koba, Amanda L. ""What Do I Think About Title IX?" Voices From a University
Community." Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport. 11 Mar. 2013. Web.

Alexandra Lee
4/18/16
UWRT 1102
Final thesis paper

"About." NCAA.org. Web.